Description:

1st Printing. Signed. Unpaginated. Published in 1991. Collection of photographs, presented as an Artist Book. One of Jan Saudek's finest achievements. The first and only edition. Published in a small and limited print run as a hardcover original only. The First Edition is now rare. A brilliant production by Jan Saudek: Oversize-volume format. Photographs by Jan Saudek. Text by Daniela Mrazkova. The book is an outstanding example of Czech publishing at its best. Printed on glossy stock paper in Prague, the Czech Republic to the highest standards. In pictorial DJ with titles on the cover and spine, as issued. Presents Jan Saudek's "Divadlo Zivota". One of Saudek's earliest and most beautiful collections. "Divadlo Zivota" ("Theater of Life"/"Theater des Lebens"/"Thzatre de la Vie"/"Theatro di Vita", in its various translations) is vintage Saudek: Gritty, erotic, sublime, indelible. Noted for his meticulous composition and painstaking hand-coloring of his prints, the artist/photographer has created a personal, gritty universe, rife with expressions of humor, desire, and despair. Born in Prague in 1935, Jan Saudek achieved fame for his theatrical and controversial photographs of male, female, couple, and orgiastic nudes, which allude both to photography's connection to painting and the whole history of Western portraiture as well as to pornographic pictures shot in studios. His embrace of the pleasures and pains of the human experience is directly evident in his work as is the unencumbered celebration of all people. Blending eroticism with tenderness, violence with Romanticism in a way that longs for the sublime, Saudek earned a considerable international cult following before becoming an important and highly influential mainstream figure. "I don't have the capacity to portray other people's lives. I am portraying my own" (Jan Saudek). An absolute "must-have" title for Jan Saudek collectors. This copy is very prominently and beautifully signed in blue pen on the title page by Jan Saudek. It is signed directly on the page itself, not on a tipped-in page. This title is a great photography book. This is one of very few such signed copies of the First Hardcover Edition/First Printing still available online and is in especially fine condition: Clean, crisp, and bright, a pristine beauty. Please note: Most copies available online have serious flaws yet are priced as though they had collectible value. This is, quite simply, one of the most beautiful signed copies we have ever seen. A rare signed copy thus. 123 plates. One of the greatest artist/photographers of our time. A fine collectible copy. (SEE ALSO OTHER JAN SAUDEK TITLES IN OUR CATALOG) ISBN 8070380268. Bookseller Inventory # 18930

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